MAL
by Wolfboy184
Summary: Mal has evolved from a projection into something more sinister. She put Cobb and a team all in a coma and trapped them in their own limbo, with copies of herself in their minds. Ariadne escaped. 15 years later, everyone must confront and destroy MAL
1. Intro

**MAL 1: Intro**

**Prologue:**

_...After the Fischer job, Dom never escaped from his limbo. The rest of the team successfully kicked back to level one, and Saito was woken by a gunshot kick straight from limbo, after spending 40 years of dilated time in the dream._

_After the plane arrived in America, Robert Fischer, the mark of the operation and subject of all three dreams, never suspected the dreams he experienced, and the idea he obtained from those dreams were from the team. He most likely carried on surprised with the fact he dreamed of the other passengers on his flight that day. Saito honored the agreement by having the charges against Cobb, and nation-wide arrest warrants neutralized. Unfortunately, Cobb never got to see his two children in real life; just mere projections of them. One can imagine his reactions as he discovered he was still in the world that he and Mal built over a 50 year dilated period. __After Cobb shot Saito; hence waking him, he was attacked by Mal before he could shoot himself. She hacked into his mind in limbo and implated the memory of him waking up, entering the U.S., and seeing his children._

_The rest of the team; Arthur- the point man and researcher; Eames, the forger; and Ariadne the architect; even Saito himself experienced a brief period of grief. Cobb, however never woke up, and slipped into a coma. Upon arrival in Los Angeles, he was rushed to a private hospital. Saito- dedicated to honoring his agreement, and weary of the effects of dream sharing, initiated developments in dream-sharing technology. He paid the original team to go into the limbo, and search for Cobb. As he suspected Mal to be the culprit of his situation, he sent in numerous people to confront the projection. Using state of the art technology, sleepers were able to access Limbo without having to do the dream-within-a-dream routine._

_The first dive revealed the time dilation variables in limbo. Time dilation under sedation is roughly around 20 to the power of the dream level. At level 3, time was 8000 times slower than in reality. Cobb's limbo is expected to be between levels 4 and 6, however, as he entered his limbo from level 3, it's expected time was dilated to a much higher degree. The computers projected the time dilation factor to be 20, but the estimated level of limbo was roughly equal to a dream layer of 4. For each day, Cobb spent 438 years and 4 months of dilated time. Each hour was 18 years. Against the urgent request of the dream (mainly Ariadne's request), Saito refused to let them go into Cobb's limbo. Years had passed for him from the time it took to move him from the airplane to the hospital. God knew what happened to him in that time. _

_It was widely believed that Mal was involved. Ariadne protested that the projection died, but Arthur believed that she was still alive. Saito told them that Cobb woke him by shooting him. He knew if Cobb could produce a gun, he would have had an additional shot to wake himself up._

_The team embarked a massive mission- by combining their subconcious and bringing all of their projections into Cobb's limbo to fight Mal's army while they hunted her down. The team speculated she would have him. Ariadne was considered to be at great risk as she shot the projection, weakening her enough for Cobb to let go of her. Another motive Mal had to attack Ariadne was because she, the Architect, hindered Mal's efforts to sabatage the Fisher Job until she told cobb of a passage way for Saito and Fischer to get into the mountain base. Ariadne also empowered Cobb to let go of his guilt that fed the projection._

_The team hunted for Mal. The team agreed to shoot Ariadne to wake her up if things got too rough._

_Mal was spotted long before she spotted the team. She knew they were there, but thanks to Ariadne's architecture, she was unable to reach them, or so they thought. This projection had learned everything Ariadne knew, and struck with a vengeance. Mal had brought down an army of thousands upon the team. They were outnumbered, injured in the massive shoot out, captured, and brought to Mal. The projection "executed" the team by stabbing each of them- to expel them and wake them up- but not before extracting their memories with an icy stare and injecting copies of herself into their minds- individual projections of her that would haunt them in their own dreams._

_As for Ariadne, she was subject to unspeakable torture at the hands of this apparition and prior to being cast into her own limbo, an electrical storm (from a defrillibrator) woke her up. Ariadne was tramatized to a serious degree and refused to cooperate with any further dream exploration, not even to save Cobb._

_But she still dreamed naturally and was haunted by Mal- who seemed to infect, alter, and destroy her memories and knowledge and whenever the girl dreamed, the projection hacked into other brain processes; altering the chemical balances in Ariadne's real body, bringing on severe depression and other mental disorders. Mal had escaped the dream realm and was alive and kicking when Ariadne wasn't dreaming- when she was asleep and awake. She caused Ariadne to hallucinate and affected her senses._

_It was believed this was Mal's revenge for empowering Cobb to overcome his guilt, and the twisted apprition living Ariadne's subconcious replaced Cobb as the object of her twisted affection._

_Today, the entire team is comatose, and Ariadne is hunted by this ghost. But Saito hasn't given up and dedicated a great amount of resources to enhance dream-sharing technology and developing the means and training those whom he would send in to take Mal out._

_He had to find Ariadne before it was too late. Before Mal could find a way to put her into a coma and haunt and torture her for an incaluclable eternity in limbo until her body aged and died._

**Inception + One Year**

365 days passed in real time. In that time, Corporate America witnessed the takedown of one of the largest conglomerates in the country- Fischer Morrow. The corporate behemoth; owner and controller of thousands of companies world wide- didn't come crashing down in a scandal as many thought- nor did it explode and cipplie its companies and disemploy hundreds of thousands of workers world wide. A year ago, it was widely speculated that the corporate giant would cave in and prosecutors eyed and drooled over the trail of foul play that created what would be a scandal much bigger than Enron, British Petroleum, Exxon, and Union Carbide. It was presumed Fischer Morrow would burst following Maurice Fischer's death. But his son, Robert Fischer, dis-assembled F-M, shuffled his army of lawyers around and had them pick apart the legal technicalities and mess of foul play left behind by those who Maurice Fischer employed.

What Robert Fischer did was he took apart almost every part of Fischer Morrow, and had each component- from corporations to individual manufacturers and blue collar companies, cleaned out or re-set. He then began to slowly build his own corporate empire that operated on more ethical values and policies. Fischer prevented catastrophic job losses, and kept Fischer Morrow from exploding and finishing off the U.S. economy for good.

In the last year, he was more successful than his father ever had been. His father built the empire, he kept it from destroying itself. And it was all thanks to the groundbreaking dream he experienced that day when he flew from Sidney to Los Angeles. But Fischer knew all along- that a parasite of an idea infecting his brain had defined him. Everything in his life had improved a great deal. He had been made able to see the imminent disaster his father left in his hands, and prevented it. Fischer originally doubted that his father wasn't ashamed, but decided he was happier that way.

Now Fischer had a new ambition- to create a dream tech industry- an industry that could be worth billions in the future. Not the mere creation of dream sharing technology but the endless possibilities of its use. And he would start with very people who changed his life.

**Manhattan, New York City, NY**

Saito, leader of his own corporate behemoth, had witnessed with great awe as Fischer Morrow was taken apart and rebuilt into a far more efficient entity. Now it no longer focused on energy, but a multitude of other things, leaving no further competition for his own empire to capitalize on.

But he never expected this, but such an opportunity had came from the unlikliest of accquaintences. He sat at the Formica table accross from Robert Fischer. At first he thought he had been exposed, that Fischer knew everything. How they hacked into his subconcious, and planted the idea that his father, Maurice Fischer, king of his corporate empire, was infact not disappointed in his son, but wanted him to be his own man and live his own life. Only God knew what Fischer would do next.

"I know everything, Mr. Saito. I know it was you and your people who pulled me into that dream. You wanted me to break up Fischer Morrow and destroy everything my father built. I invited you to meet me here, so you can admit that."

Saito sat uneasily in his seat, but wasn't exactly scared of Fischer. Hardly anyone knew about dream sharing technology and Fischer would have a difficult time proving this in court. Saito's army of attorneys would most likely win in any court cases related to this.

"You're right, Mr. Fischer," Saito confessed, "I hired Mr. Cobb and his team and they planted the idea in your mind. But we noticed you're having a greater success than your father, no?"

Fischer sighed and looked at Saito, "That's all I wanted to hear. I have but one thing to say."  
"What's that?"  
"Thank you."  
"Oh," Saito said, surprised, "You're welcome."  
"I don't think it was merely an idea that your people gave me," Fischer said, "I honestly believe that what I thought about my father was wrong, that he was only disappointed I tried to measure up to him, and your team revealed that secret to me, whether you planted an idea or not."

_Eames, you have done very well.  
_Saito cleared his throat, and said, "So, how are things going for you, since this breakthrough?"

Fischer chuckled and smiled, and replied, "My father built an empire, but in the last few years it got slow, and began to crumble. I even warned him myself, and he ignored everything. You see, I had to take Fischer Morrow apart or else everything in it would have came crumbling down. I even had to let Browning go because he was too stubborn to see the legal aspects of the problem. I did. I put new companies together and let them operate separately. A few minor adjustments from here keeps each of them working in top order. But overall, I merely took what my father gave me, and made it into something better."

Saito nodded, noting the young baron's increased confidence.  
"I'm happy for you, Mr. Fischer."

"I've noticed your practice using the- what is it called, that device that makes people dream?"

"The PASIV. Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous device. Dream sharing technology. It was devised by the military for experiments and training purposes. Our man, Dom Cobb used it for his line of work."

Fischer continued, "How is this Cobb anyway? Did he make it back to his children?"  
Saito nodded sadly, "Sadly no. If you remember, he slipped into a coma when we landed. He was removed on a stretcher. Do you recall him telling you of a place called Limbo? How in a sedated dream that if you died you wouldn't wake up and be stranded there for a long period of time?"

"Yes, I recall him saying that, if he told me he was Mr. Charles. But how did he end up in a coma? Was it that sedative?"  
"No," Saito said, "It was Mal. That woman who shot you and tied you up. Cobb is in limbo. The medical team I hired to oversee him found no viable cause. I suspect it's her."  
"Her?-" Fischer began, but Saito cut him off.  
"It was a projection of his wife. You should know her. She shot you and put you into Limbo. You only escaped by grace of-"  
"Your architect Ariadne. I know who she is. Has she gone back to the university in Paris?"  
"She has disappeared, and I'm trying to find her," Saito admitted sadly, "Before its too late. You see, Mr. Saito, that woman who shot you during our dream has become a menace. She imprisoned Mr. Cobb in Limbo, and caused him to go into a coma. We went in to find him, and neutralize her, but she struck with a vengeance, and decimated the team. They are now all in coma. Ariadne escaped the dream and ran out from our lab. I havent heard much about her since."

"I see," Fischer said, looking down at the table, then back up at Saito, "Who is Mal again?"  
"She is the memory of Dom Cobb's late wife, Mallorie Cobb. She committed suicide over a year ago. She was Cobb's first experiment where inception is concerned. He failed and now she's dead. The idea he planted in her killed her- drover her to commit suicide. Where Cobb failed with his wife, he succeeded with you."

"W-wait a minute," Fischer said, "What was the idea?"  
"That the world is not real. Cobb and his wife experimented with dreamspace exploration. They spent 50 years in Limbo. When you dream, your brain functions faster, giving the sense of time being slowed down. A three hour nap stretched out to 50 years in Limbo. Cobb sought to escape and wake up, his wife accepted Limbo as her reality and refused to leave. So Cobb planted the idea in her subconscious, and she agreed to wake up. When they woke up, the idea stuck with her like a parasite. That reality was a dream, and limbo was real. She committed suicide. Cobb and his team were extremely careful with you. She was destroyed, you were defined. And now all that remains is a projection of her, powered by guilt, fear, memory, and time. Mal has infected Cobb and his team. They were in his limbo, and she infected each of their minds, and now a projection of her exists in each of them, destroying them from the inside."

Fischer seemed sympathetic for a second, but then was again systematic as he always was.

"I'm sorry to hear of your expenses, suffered on my behalf. I wanted to offer a business proposal on a cheerful note, but that's past."

"What proposal?" Saito asked.

"This dream sharing technology, I see potential for an industry so great it will change the world, and everyone in it- from manufacturers to clients and customers to the higher-ups- like us would all benefit. There will one day be a dream sharing tech industry, and those people will posses the same qualities of your team. I propose that we make this a joint venture, and as I have plenty on my hands, you could run it. I provide the funding, and we share the profits evenly."

Saito could hardly respond to the young man's proposal. So Fischer continued:

"Listen, there will be an industry one day. It's already visible underground. I have several intel agencies watching and reporting. You can imagine what advances can be made, and threats be presented in this-"

"I accept your proposal." Saito said, "You and I have had these dreams. We've both been to Limbo. We both know the potential threat of one single projection. If I didn't know any better, I'd say we're late for the new arms race."

"So be it," Fischer said, "We'll creat new companies, get around the law, and set up where authorities will be least concerned. But, first I want a handle on this projection. She's a dangerous weapon if unleashed."

"It would be best if we destroyed her."

"Then do it," Fischer said smugly.

"We need our architect. She dis-powered Mal once. We need her to do it again, and take out this projection once and for all."

"Where is she?"

"She disappeared. She's gone." Saito said.

The two men talked further and established that they would use their resources to locate Ariadne and bring her back.


	2. James, Phillipa, and Ariadne

**MAL 2**

**Inception + 15 years  
****Fallen Architect, Fallen Angel**

It was a recurring dream that would never fail to repeat itself whenever Ariadne slept. She was with the team- Arthur and Eames, traveling through Cobb's limbo. She tore up the endless expanse of sand-made high rise towers and crafted a new city as she went, trapping the tens of thousands of enemy projections Mal sent after them. But Mal knew everything. She made the world crumble and buried them alive. They were crushed like flies- and unable to wake from the pain and agony. Mal controlled Cobb's other projections and "her" own. They decimated the projections the three of them brought in, and pulled the members of the team from the rubble and burning wreckage. Ariadne was force to watch as Eames was shredded alive by Mal's soldiers armed with chainsaws. She was forced to watch as they doused Arthur with gasoline and set him on fire. Yusuf was injected with a lethal dose of box jellyfish venom- one of the deadliest toxins in the world. He screamed in agony as Irukanji syndrom took over.

As for her, Mal reserved an especially cruel fate. Ariadne was tied down and Mal cut her up and took her apart, piece by piece. Mal had acquired Ariadne's building and altering capabilities when she stabbed her on the bridge, and later when Mal saw her in the hotel room. Mal broke the pain-kick factor and prevented the team from wake up. Ariadne screamed in agony as Mal tore strips of skin, muscle, nerves, even bones off of her. Mal kicked them out eventually, but not before injecting copies of herself into their subconscious. These individual projections would wreak untold havoc on their minds. They had slipped into comas, but Ariadne woke.

But withink weeks, the projection came to life like a parasite when she was awake and sleeping, causing hallucinations, pain, and drove the girl well into madness. Mal had gained control of her automatic system and caused Ariadne to become ill with symptoms of untold diseases. From her skin falling off to pain and siezures (with no actual injury or infection), Ariadne was haunted and agonized every day she lived, but the girl fought and refused to go into limbo. Ariadne's war with Mal drove her into drugs- which obtaining entaled crime. She spent time in and out of the prison system, and was placed in three different psychiatric hospitals. None of the doctors were able to figure out what was wrong with her. People who met her decreed she was posessed. Of course, poor Ariadne was.

Ariadne escaped from the mental hospital and while running from police- and Mal, she tried to kill herself- by bolting out into a high speed highway. she was struck by a speeding car. She was mercifully knocked unconcious on impact. Broken arm, broken foot, three cracked ribs, and cracked skull with brain hemorrhage. She was rushed to the hospital and taken in for emergency surgery. A section of her skull was removed to prevent further swelling of her brain. When she awoke in the hospital, the quiet ambiance of the hospital room and heavy dose of morphine and painkillers brought her into a new brain-damaged peace. she could still think and talk and move if she wanted to.

However, Ariadne suffered permanent memory loss. And along with those memories and knowledge, Mal was gone too. 'she didn't care how injured she was, she was the happiest person in the world just to be rid of Mal.

Ariadne recovered and spent another six months in the mental hospital. Getting hit by a car had completely changed her from a deranged whacked psycho to a stable, peaceful person who they deemed capable to live in the outside world. Ariadne was put on disability and placed in a halfway house in Ysidro (San Diego). But being rid of Mal came with a heavy price. she was still emotionally, spiritually and psychologically mangled from years of torment in dreams, limbo, and real life. She still suffered pains from injuries she suffered in dreams. Her nervous system was messed, and medications only agitated her condition more. On a hot July day when the temperature soared well over 100*F, she would end up freezing from hypothermia, or on cold days she would sweat until she was soaking wet.

Ariadne had forgotten about her days in architectural school and her dreams of designing and building. It all seemed like ancient history, and now she couldn't even build a tower with Jenga blocks- that knowledge had been shredded and decimated by Mal.

She tried to work but depression, anxiety, paranoia, the pains, the cramps, and occasionally passing out in the middle of walking made holding down a job difficult. Longest she held down a job was a week at the local Taco Bell fast food joint and even then they didn't want her.

She spent her days barricaded in her room watching TV or playing computer games. she tried to be creative, she tried to do good, but every part of her that was her was destroyed. As much as Ariadne tried to fight it, she found it increasingly difficult to cope with the fact she was going to become and old woman, filled with regret, waiting to die alone. She tried to end it numerous times, but with no success. And the people running the halfway house kept a close eye on her.

**James & Phillipa Cobb**

James, 19; and Phillipa, 22; both clearly remembered how drastically their mother changed right before she died. They had no idea of dream sharing, and were utterly clueless as to the function of the sedating machine they found in the house. Their mother was a very beautiful and loving person in their lives up until the final three weeks of her life. She changed in an instant.

At the time, James was 4, and Phillipa was 7. It was late summer and they were in school. Then, that day everything changed. Their mother shunned them, looked at them as if they were rats and shoved them away, yelling at them to stay away, and telling them, _'You're not real!' _

When Phillipa tried to argue and reached out to touch her mother's arm and prove she was real, their mother swung a knife at her. Only by quick reflex did the little girl evade injury. Their father, Dom, had to hold her back when she tried to chase them, and shoved her into a bedroom.

He later told the two scared children that their mother had a really bad dream and she was having trouble knowing she was awake. From that point onward, an ice cold threatening glare was all the two kids got from their mother. They both remember Mom saying to Dad: _"What makes you think any of this is real?"  
_"_EVERYTHING is Real, Mal! Our kids are real! Stop with this-"  
_"_They're just projections of your subconcious! And you know it! you're too stubborn to realize that! I know what is real and what isn't! Our real children are waiting for us back home in the world we built! How could you neglect our two children for those _[pointing at James and Phillipa] _empty projections?__"  
"WTF are you talking about?" _Cobb yelled back, _"Goddammit, Mal, get it into your head we are no longer in Limbo, this is real life!"_  
The heated argument swiftly ended when she threw a large knife at their dad, forcing him to duck. She lunged at him with another knife, and the two kids ran from the house.

Dad had James and Phillipa sent accross town to stay with relatives. The last memory of the two kids was seeing their mother, now dispassionate, uncaring, cold; sitting at the dining room table, with the carving knife in her hand recklessly stabbing tomatoes. Dad had told them she thought she was in a dream, and missed them very much. He wanted to help her realize she was in reality again and be their mother again.

News of their mother's death came from Dad as, _"Kids, I have to tell you something...your mom's gone away...back to the dream, and...she may never come back. I'm sorry."_

That was also the last time they saw their dad. They bounced back and remained cheerful and energetic as ever, confident he would fix 'the problem' and make things the way they were before. The last day, he met with a man at home, and when they came back, he was gone, not knowing when their grandmother called their names, that was the last time their father looked at them before he left for good. The next day, a police officer came and questioned them on the whereabouts of their father and what happened before their mother vanished. Their testimony that she tried to kill them failed to prove any fault on her part.

Losing their mother and father had been hard on them, and it played out in how they grew up. It felt as if they both disappeared 'into the dream world' for ever. Years later they found out about their mother committing suicide, and of the ill-fated practice of dream sharing, and the 'dream machine' they saw.

Luck was on their side as the two went through university and graduated with big credentials. James took up engineering, and Phillipa took up architecture. Both attended prestigous schools in Europe and the U.S, where they, recieved the best education money could buy. Both became skilled and talented in their fields. Then came the question: Where was their father. They both resigned to the fact their mother was gone, but knew their father was still alive. They researched, they questioned, and after many long years, they came in contact with the Japanese businesman Mr. Saito.

Over an intense lunch, he explained everything they demanded to know about dream sharing, from the machine to what happened to their parents.

**Inception + 15 years  
Chiyoda, Tokyo**

Saito saw James and Phillipa Cobb when they were little- well, Cobb's projections of them during the Fischer job. They appeared outside the Hotel and he saw them a few times playing in the vast empty streets and desolate beaches during his stint in Limbo. Now they sat accross the lounge in front of them. They were full grown-ups, each of them self-made individuals. For two kids who lost their parents, they had done quite well for what Cobb's and Mal's families resources and love had to offer.

Saito looked and felt older. His hair was greying, but nonetheless he felt a lot younger than when he was in Limbo. He was not enjoying reviewing the grim details of what happened fifteen years ago. He had explained all he knew about dreamspace, levels, brain function, time dilation, limbo, projections, extracting/ incepting ideas; everything. Now they wanted to know the big question: What happened to Cobb?

"By this week's end," Saito said grimly, "if Mr. Cobb was conscious throughout his coma, he'll have spent three hundred thousand years in Limbo, if it is equal to a dream level of four."  
"What?" Phillipa said, shaking her head in disbelief, "Are you kidding?"  
"No," Saito said, "I'm not."  
"Time dilation, sister," James said, straightening his jacket.

"Let me explain this to you again," Saito said sternly, "When you dream, your brain functions much faster than it does when you are awake, there fore, time is much slower. By default, it is 12 times faster, and when you dream on multiple levels, the speed of your mind is increased exponentially, stretching time by a great big deal. It looks like real time in the dream because of your mind. In Limbo, there is no set way of how much time can pass. Say we assume Limbo is a fourth level of depth, time is 20,736 times faster than in real life time. Each passing second is over five hours. I could be wrong, and Mr. Cobb could be spending much much more time per second."

James and Phillipa remained rooted to their seats, and didn't argue their disbelief. They dreamed with the sedating machine before, they knew how time could be stretched.

"What- how much could that affect him?" Phillipa asked.

"He will not remember you or anything else in this past life. His memory will be erased abd be replaced by more "recent" memories of his life in limbo."

"What about our mother? She-"

Saito silenced them with a sharp wave.

"You listen to me," he said sternly, "Mal is not your mother. Your mother is long passed away, I'm sorry but that is that. The projection in Cobb's limbo is nowhere near anything like the woman who raised you two. You remember how she regarded you as mere projections? After 50 years spent in a dream? Then she tried to kill you? That's what this projection is. Cobb's last living memory of her, powered by his guilt for what he had done. Mal tried to kill you years ago. What makes you think she will be anymore pleasant in the dream? Her's and Cobb's projections of you two are all that's real in limbo, and you two will be destroyed if you go in there looking for them!"

James and Phillipa sat on the couch, stunned by Saito's harsh words. Both of them looked down, coming to terms with the possibility of never seeing their father again. Phillipa began to shake as tears streamed out of her eyes.

"Didn't you guys try to kick him?"

"We tried," Saito sighed, "We tried every trick in the book to revive him. Nothing worked. It goes to show how much Mal has taken control over his body. She is rotting him away. I've had him examined, and they say there's an overall process of preservation of his body- so Mal can use it longer. Because when Mr. Cobb dies, so will the projection. We comtemplated ending his suffering with a gunshot, but that would have denied you two the rights to your father's fate."

"And now it comes to this," he continued, "As per arrangements, we have kept Mr. Cobb alive so that you may do what you will with him."

"I want to see him." Philippa said,

"Out of the question," Saito countered,

"So, sir, she means just to look at him as he's sleeping."

"Very well. I'll show you to him, and his team as well. Our base of operations is in South Africa, that's where he is."

****

Johannesburg,

Gauteng Province, South Africa

The sprawling city covered the vast Sun-baked Highveld Plateau. An industrial district on the fringe of the city was completely owned by Fischer and one of the many centers for dream tech development, production, and research.

Lab 46 was home to the comatose bodies of the Fischer job team. Each of them was separate, tied down to gurneys and hooked to feeding and sewage-extraction equipment.

Each of them, except Ariadne, had been like this for over 15 years now- Hundreds of thousands of years in possible Limbo time. About thirty more comatose bodies accompanied them. They contained the scarified minds of brave dreamers who dared to enter their subconscious and rescue them. After a year of intense revival efforts, the scientists working on them gave up and pursued other projects.

On the way, James and Phillipa met the ultimate boss of their esteem employers- Robert Fischer. Fischer, sympathetic to Cobb in his own way, aided them by providing the funding for their schooling and privileged things in their lives, including their jobs. It was the least he could do to thank Cobb, in spite of the fact everything he provided was unable to get Cobb out of limbo and be rid of Mal.

The atmosphere in this lab was chilling. The place was neat and tidy; a nurse tending to the members of the Limbo Club, machines and computers silently humming. The hissing of the pumps from nearby sedating machines echoed off the walls. Three trainees were practicing- laying passed out around a machine.

Saito showed James and Phillipa each of the original team, lying sprawled out on gurneys, hooked to equipment.

"This is Yusuf, he tailored the compounds needed for level three dreams. He purposely designed his sedatives so that a falling effect in the dream or real life would wake the person up. Mal prevented that in this case. This, here is our point man, Arthur, he researched the subjects of each job. This man here is Eames, the forger. He could disguise himself as someone's projections. He was very good at it. and now, Mr. Cobb."

Dominic Cobb's body lay peacefully on his gurney buried under blankets. An oxygen mask covered his face. A heart rate monitor and brainwave monitor continued to beep. Cobb had aged considerable, despite he had been on this bed for the last decade and a half.

James and Phillipa stood quietly over him. Phillipa tried not to cry but she couldn't hold it in. She squeezed his hand tight, hoping their father, far deep inside would feel it. She found it unbareable to look at his now-frail frame.

"Dad? Can you hear us?" James asked.

"He can't hear a thing," Saito said quietly. "He's blind, deaf, cannot feel, taste, nor small. They even threw him on the floor and hit him but still he failed to wake up. Same with the others. But I assure, even though he can't hear you, Mal can, and she's listening."

"This is horrible- and a projection- a piece of memory is doing this to him?"

"He empowered her, with guilt that he felt for your mother's death. And she fed on the feelings and memories of everyone else, including Fischer and I. We got lucky."

"How did our mother die?" Phillipa asked.

**Ariadne's Story of Cobb, as told by Saito**

Saito, having been told by Ariadne long ago, explained, "They got into dream sharing. They went deeper and they found themselves in Limbo. They built a world, and lived in it for 50 years. Cobb kept his perception on reality and dream. Mal didn't and accepted Limbo and projections of her children as her reality. She didn't want to go. I told you about totems, hers was the top. If you spin it and it eventually stops, you're awake. If it continues to spin without wavering, you're in a dream. She locked hers away. Cobb broke into the safe and spun it, incepting the idea in her that the world was not real and she should leave. So Cobb summoned a train and the two rested their heads on the track. When the train hit them, they woke up. After 50 years in limbo. Their minds had aged. Cobb was happy to be back in reality, but Mal- the idea he planted in her head grew and festered, like a parasite and did not dissolve. Mal belived she was in a dream and Limbo was reality, not here.

"She was manic with the idea, and like in the dream belived commiting suicide was the only way back, only she refused to do it alone, so she tricked Cobb into commiting suicide with her by filing false reports of domestic violence. Her death resulted in murder charges, and Cobb would have faced life in prison if he didn't kill himself. To bolster the cause for suicide, Mal had herself declared sane by three psychiatrists to void any arguments Cobb might have had about her in court. After her suicide, he fled the United States. I offered to clear his charges if he could to the same thing to Mr. Fischer-"

Fischer blushed and chuckled, but he still didn't like this sort of thing being talked about in front of others. Saito continued:

"-which he succeded. but when he fled, he had huge regrets and guilt- over what he did to her, and how it affected you two, and how he never had the chance to say good bye when your grandmother called for you. He tried to keep Mal alive- a projection, mind you. He tried to change his memories. She would sabatage his jobs all in vain hopes he would come to be with her- and he missed her a great deal. Cobb got confused, and failed to realize she's just a projection- a figment of his memory, not a spirit or ghost of your real mother.

"...so, she sabotaged our job. Fischer and I ended up in limbo, I was shot on level one by another projection, Fischer was shot by her and held hostage in Limbo. In exchange for him, Cobb agreed to stay, and Ariadne kicked Fischer and herself back to level 3."

Fischer cut in, "I saw what happened. He told her she was fake, that she was no good. So she stabbed him, and the other girl shot her. Everyone thinks by helping Cobb to overcome his guilt and regret, the projection was weakened and died."

Saito nodded and picked up again, "But it gets hazy from there. I spent 40 years in limbo. Cobb came for me. Woke me with a gun shot to the face. I woke up along with everybody else. We unhooked Fischer from the machine and put it away before he woke up. But Cobb never woke up. When we landed, he fell out of his seat. We had him rushed to hospital to get him checked. Nothing wrong, he just won't wake up. So I had the team enter limbo to search for Cobb. Why he only had one shot in his gun is beyond me. I didn't go in, I had business to attend do. I came back and found they were all in comas. Ariadne woke up and was extremely agitated and distraught. We tried to go into her dreams to address the problem and found that Mal replicated herself and now a projection was haunting her. Ariadne became defensive, violent, and escaped. That was the last time we saw her. Before she left, she told me this:"

"...When they went into Cobb's limbo, they were attacked by Cobb's projections- all controlled by Mal. Even Ariadne's expertise and skill in building dream environments and facilities were Mal's for the taking. The projection dispensed seemingly unimaginable horrors on the team, and everyone else we sent in. Ariadne said she was skinned and stripped of her flesh. Pain is in the mind, and in a dream, you can still suffer, especially if Mal has control over your sensory nerves."

"How did Ariadne wake up?" James asked.

"We don't know. My guess was for Mal to send us a message of what she will do to anyone else who dares to enter Mr. Cobb's limbo. And theres as a matter of fact," Saito said, pointing to everyone else in the group. "We say they are deaf and blind, but that only means they are. But Mal can still hear what we are saying-"

"Then why are we here, talking about this? If all copies of her can hear us?" Phillipa demanded.

Saito shrugged, "I think the projection knows the story anyway. Besides, important details are discussed far more secure environments. Shall we go?"

**Children decide the Father's fate**

James and Phillipa sat across the table in a brightly lit but soundproofed room. It was just Saito now with them. He placed a folder on the table and showed it to them. It was a profile on Ariadne.

"This is all we have on her. God knows where she is now," Saito said, "She's just as important as the rest. In fact, she's far more important."

"Why?"

Saito chuckled, "She had the capability to shut Mal down once. I think she can do it again."

"Well, if Mal's been carving up her mind over the last 15 years, I don't think she's going to be that useful," Phillipa argued.  
"I fear you may be right," Saito said, "But I refuse to give up until she is found and assessed. Listen, if you two actually want to help Mr. Cobb, I can't deny you that right. But for your safety, I cannot allow you two to simply hook yourselves to the sedater and go in yourselves. You will wind up like the others down there. In fact some have even been rotting alive, their bodies mangled by disease and deterioration. Mal's taken control of their nervous systems and wreaks plights upon them as they sleep."

James and Phillipa nodded, "So- where do we start?" James asked.

"First we'll start with Ariadne. I have sent hundreds of people out along with orders to find her and bring her to us. On top of that, we will assemble a well trained team to train you and get you two prepared for the harsh realities of dream space. Combat and firearms training will be necessary. When the time comes, you will all enter Ariadne's subconscious. We have advanced computers that replace the PASIV as the main dream device. You can enter limbo without additional dream layers, and it has a more powerful kick system. Unaffected by Mal, you will be kicked out with a strong electric shock. If you die, the computer will pick up on the patterns and kick you immediately should a natural death induced kick fail. Now, what do you say?"

"We'll do it," James and Phillipa both said.

"Good, but I will warn you. The higher ups on this project have special authority as this work is dangerous. Three people- all contaminated by Mal became vehicles for her- She was able to control their bodies and as them, she killed several workers. If the situation is out of control, security personnel are under orders to shoot anyone suspected to be controlled by Mal when awake. You risk death. Understand?"

Cobb's grown kids hesitated, then nodded.

"Good. Because Mal is a very real threat. Should she ever get out, and with a dream device, it will be nothing short of disaster."

They nodded again.

"Good," Saito said. "Let's get you onto your training. I'll see about getting Ariadne."

"Sir," a suit said as he walked up to Saito when they got out of the room.  
"What is it?"  
"It's Ariadne. Two hours ago she was arrested at the U.S./Mexico border at San Ysidro trying to enter the U.S. without a passport. The report said she lives in San Diego, and entered Tijuana through the turnstile gate. And she forgot her passport at home. They're holding her on Fischer's request, and he told me to contact you."

"Have Ariadne fully examined and bring her here. Terminate her residence at her current home location, and have the Americans send me all records and information her collected for the last 15 years."

"Yes, sir" the suit barked before walking off.


	3. Broken Architect

**MAL**** 3 : ****I Remember**

**Repairing the Architect**

The garage door clicked as it was raised. The ominous looking van slowly drove in and stopped.

Inside, 34 year old Ariadne sat on a bench, cuffed, exhausted from the flight time, totally clueless of where she was, and now she was about to find out what would happen to her next. She sat still, heart pounding, blood churning, and could hardly bear the possibility that this was all Mal's doing. She was sure after the brain damage she sustained from flinging herself into heavy speeding traffic, Mal was dead. Now she had creeping fears Mal was back.

The truck lurched to a halt. She heard a loud clank as the doors were unlatched, and opened. Ariadne squinted in the bright light trying to get a glimpse of the people looking at her.

A suited man waved at her indicating she was supposed to step out. She got up, and slowly stepped out.

"Welcome back, Ariadne," said a familiar voice. She looked up and saw a middle aged Japanese businessman walking up to her. He reached out for a handshake. Not wanting to endanger herself, she shook his hand.

"Do you remember me? I'm Mr. Saito. You worked for me once, a long time ago."

Ariadne shook her head, "No, sir I don't"

"It will come to you. This way please," he said politely, leading her out of the huge garage through a maze of corridors to a small meeting room.

The strange tasting stew was probably the first thing she'd eaten in days.

"Sorry to have disrupted your schedule," Saito was saying, "But, it turns out we need your help."

She looked at Saito, still not remembering who he was, swallowed her food and asked, "Did Mal send you to kidnap me?"

Saito, a young man and young woman she did not recognize looked at each other.

"No, she didn't," Saito replied, "But our problem just so happens to be Mal. Do you remember Mr. Cobb? Arthur? Eames? Yusuf? You worked with these men once. You built the dream environments."

Ariadne shook her head.

"I don't remember. I think you got the wrong person."

"We checked. You're the one we've been searching for over 15 years now. If you remember Mal, then why don't you remember us?"

She only replied with a shrug. Saito reached out, and placed a chess piece- a large pawn- on the table in front of her.

"Do you remember using that?"

She picked it up. It's weight felt funny.

"It was your totem." Saito said, "The object you used to confirm whether you were in reality, or a dream."

"I guess I worked for you," Ariadne conceded, "But I don't remember anything. Those guys' names are familiar…Arthur…"

"Why do you remember Mal, and nothing else?"

Ariadne looked at him. She did remember, "Mal invaded my dreams, and she was everywhere, and she always hurt me, and never stopped."

"I know," Saito said, "And I know how she got in your head. You ran away, thinking you could escape from her, but she was always in your thoughts, your memories, and your dreams?"

Ariadne shed a tear, not wanting to think about it. "Please, sir, I don't want to talk about it. She always kept me in limbo…all those sand buildings…I would be stuck there for hundreds of years at a time…seeing nothing move…nothing…just two little kids playing in the streets with Mal…"

"Those two kids are right here sitting beside me. They're Cobb's children, James, and Phillipa. They wanted to meet you, to see the architect who almost killed Mal."

James and Phillipa looked at her, and said their greetings, and asked her questions about Cobb's final moments, but she remembered nothing.

"I don't remember." Ariadne said, wiping away a tear, "I don't want to remember. Any good memories I had were destroyed by Mal."

"But you have to," Phillipa insisted, "Because we need your help. We need you to help us bring back our father."

"He's dead," Ariadne argued bitterly, "Mal killed him. There's nothing you can do. I don't know how the hell I lived with Mal, she'll be way worse on him, after all, he tried to kill her- I mean the projection. I shot her, and I paid for it, but Cobb, he was the one who could destroy her by releasing his guilt. What makes you think she'll let him get away with that?"

James and Phillipa looked uneasy.

"Go on, tell us what you know. Tell us what happened when you went into his subconscious to look for him." James ordered.

"Fuck you guys," Ariadne hissed bitterly, "Just can't resist, can you?"

"Take it easy," Saito said, "Try to understand that they did not know how they lost their parents. They want to know of this projection that turned Mr. Cobb's limbo into a prison and infected the minds of the team, including you. They are not dead; they are all in a coma. If they have been conscious this time, and imprisoned in their own limbo by Mal, they have been imprisoned for over 160 _thousand_ years."

Ariadne's eyes widened, and she replied, "Then they're just as good as dead because they won't remember a thing, and that's just from time alone. God knows what Mal's been doing to them since."

"And that's where you come in," Saito said, "You were the only one who escaped from lapsing into a coma. We need your help-"

"What can I do?" Ariadne snapped back, pounding the table, "Don't you get it? Mal's carved up all our minds and shredded our memories to the point we can't think! She put us all through a fucking blender! And she'll do the same to you! Your parents are gone, get over it! If you go into Cobb's subconscious, Mal will fucking kill you."

There was a tense pause of uncomfortable silence, and then she asked, "How do you dream anyway?" Apparently her amnesia was selective.

"The PASIV sedation machine. It puts you to sleep and places you in a shared dream." Saito said.

"What, like a dream machine of some sort?"

At the same time someone brought in a large bulky looking steel suitcase and placed it on the table and unlocked it. The man opened it to reveal the apparatus inside, and the second Ariadne saw it, her eyes bulged and she screamed at the top of her lungs. She jumped up out of her seat and hit the floor. She scrambled to her feet and backed herself into the wall, hitting the water cooler.

Everyone else was startled by her panic attack, especially James and Phillipa.

"Get that thing away from me! _Get that fucking thing away from me! You're not hooking me up to that thing!_" she screamed at the top of her lungs.

"Royson, get this out of here!" Saito demanded. The man slammed the metal suitcase shut and quickly removed it from the room. Ariadne stood hunched against the wall sweating and breathing heavily.

"Are you okay?" Phillipa asked.

"Stay away from me!" Ariadne shot back.

"Why are you so scared of that?" Saito demanded.

Ariadne continued to hyperventilate for a few minutes, "Just…just gimme a minute."

A minute later, she started to calm down. She covered her face with one hand and started sobbing.

"Are you okay?" Saito asked.

Still crying, Ariadne nodded.

"Now please tell us why seeing the machine scared you."

Ariadne tried to regain her composure, and wiped her eyes with her sleeve, took a deep breath, and said, "Because, that thing will bring back Mal. I just got rid of her, and doing so hurt like hell. I am not going into any sort of dream- not even for a second, and I don't care what you people say. You see me? You see how screwed up I am? This is nothing compared to what Mal's done to the others. You wanna end their misery, just take a gun and blow their heads off!"

LAter, Saito, James and Phillipa met in another meeting room with a medical professional Fischer hired to over see the participants. He sifted through a fat stack of papers- the profile on Ariadne compiled from the information collected on her.

"As you can see, Mr. Saito, her reaction to seeing the sedating device is a very strong indicator of traumatic experiences she's endured in dream space or limbo. These records from Pasadena Psychiatric Hospital in Los Angeles tell us that the woman has been literally possessed by her own projection of Mal- a mind virus. Of course, the doctors at Pasadena saw her condition as a mystery, but we all know that her suffering is Mal's doing."

"So is that why she threw herself off of a bridge into the middle of the freeway?" Saito asked.

"That was a suicide attempt, carried out shortly after she escaped from the hospital. Apparently being locked up made it easier for Mal to haunt her. Of course she lived, but after being hit by a car going well over 50 miles per hour, the impact left her body mangled with injury and she suffered a severe head injury. She was in the hospital for eight months recuperating. These reports indicate that since the accident, she has not seen Mal, which leaves me to believe that the part of the brain containing the memory of the projection was injured and the memory destroyed. I've run her through some tests, and it shows that her memory has been reduced to fragments. Intact memory she has only exists from when she woke up in the hospital to the present. She can remember fragments of what happened 15 years ago. I am afraid that the talents she acquired working with building dreams has been lost."

"I want her put under and team sent in to examine her subconscious," Saito ordered.

The doc chuckled, "Sir, you are going to have no luck in convincing her to agree to be put under. You saw her reaction the sight of your dream machine, what makes any of you think she will allow anyone to stick the IV in her wrist?"

"Then we'll sedate her, and while she's sleeping, we connect her to the machine and the team will look at her from there."

"Good luck, doing so will cause her to never trust anyone again and you'll be required to force her to comply each time. Her level of distrust can also make her subconscious a very hostile environment, and if Mal is still lurking around in there, which I doubt- I'm gonna say that your team had better be prepared for the worst."

"We will."

Ariadne walked around the room examining the comatose bodies of the team she once knew. Her memory of them came back. Yusuf, the quirky Persian who made the sedatives for the Fischer job; Eames, the dashing Forger, and Arthur-

The charming young Arthur who kissed her during the Fischer job; were all frail, hollow frames of the men she knew. Their eyes and ears were covered. She walked up to the gurney where Cobb lay. He looked the most aged of the group. He had grey hair, his skin wrinkled more, his face hallowed and bony. She lifted off the cloth that covered his eyes, and saw they were open, and darting around. She wondered if he was actually awake and his Mal was standing over him right next to her in his vision. Then the eyes looked at her.

"Cobb," she said, removing the ear plugs, "It's me, Ari-"

"Get away from there!" Saito said, startling her. He quickly shoved her aside and covered Cobb's eyes and ears.

"Wh-what did I do?"

"You just alerted Mal of your presence here. Cobb's not the one who can see or hear you. Mal is. She was looking at you through his eyes, and she's the one listening."

Ariadne nodded, and stepped back, "Sorry, I didn't know…"

Saito looked her in the eye, and said, "Never do that again. So, have you had much thought on dreaming or are you still firm in your resolve?"

"I'm not dreaming." Ariadne said strongly, "and I don't know If you noticed, but if you put me under and bring others into a dream, Mal's going to infect them too. It's really not worth it. You'll just make more people suffer."

Saito didn't reply when Ariadne walked away.

Later that night, the Dream Scouts arrived. Dream scouts were people who worked for Fischer's umbrella of dream tech companies by venturing into dream space on endless experiments and research. Saito ordered a team of 50 experienced scouts to enter Ariadne's limbo. Each of them had over 500 hours' of Limbo training, and for good measure, a lot of them were architect dreamers.

Saito informed them of Ariadne and her condition, and the dangers they would possibly face in her limbo.

A woman by the name of "Ausparra", a veteran dream scout was among the elite. She specialized in the field of manipulating projections, and kept a mind-virus projection of her own which she controlled. She was called a shade master, and was called in for things like this. She had logged more than 20 years of dream time in only a six month period.

Ariadne lay passed out on a gurney as they wheeled it out into one of the large rooms or dream labs. Someone slipped a powerful sedative in some water she drank, and it would knock her out for 18 hours. A powerful sedative was required for anyone to access limbo.

In the last 15 years, there had been huge milestone advances in dream sharing technology. The signature PASIV device was replaced by a computer (which acted as a peripheral to a standard computer) that was connected to more efficient sedating devices. Using new computer hardware and software, the human brain was analyzed and decoded like a hard drive, so was the rest of the nervous system.

Using this software allowed for scientists to identify what was happening in someone's brain during a dream and allowed for streaming audio and video from the person's brain as they ventured through the dream.

Using the computers, scientists discovered just how messed up Ariadne's brain really was. Like a computer, in which the operating system is made of files that work together, the brain seemed to operate the same way. "Files" of Ariadne's memory were found to be corrupt, 'shattered,' missing, or wrongly placed. Processes were scrambled and data routes throughout the brain and nervous system were mangled. It was almost as if she had been struck by lightning. A computer program that could identify a 'parasite' or 'virus' in the human brain was not available.

Audio clips (from her past thoughts), videos, text files downloaded from Ariadne into a computer revealed Mal's horrors. One video shown walking down a street, and Mal appeared out of thin air, and stabbed her in the abdomen. Blood was seen then disappeared like nothing.

Nothing on her memories of the Fischer job or architecture school was found.

Then came time to get the dream started. Everyone was hooked to computers that were all connected.

A button was pressed, and all of them passed out, relaxed by the gentle heat of the somnacin flowing through their blood streams.


	4. Ariadne's Limbo

**Ariadne's Limbo  
Time Dilation: 3'200,000x **

Ariadne woke up and found herself drowning in a sea of icy oil. The sky and liquid were pitch black, and she struggled to stay afloat. She was swallowed, then thrown into the freezing air, and slammed into the thick surface again. Panic consumed her and she went into a desperate frenzy to stay afloat.

Hours later, she found herself washed up on the shores of a desolate beach.

Sapped of her strength, Ariadne struggled as she crawled towards the part of the shore untouched by the ink-black oil. Beyond the shore were the massive sand-built towers. Cold winds blew around her, and the Sunlight offered no warmth.

She was swallowed by a massive black wave as it surged over the shore. When the oily surf receded, it left her lying on the unnatural powdered surface. She struggled to her feet and looked around.

The sky was black as outer space, but there were no stars. The black ocean expanded beyond the horizon. In the opposite direction was the city of crumbling towers.

Ariadne knew this place. It was the limbo deep inside the depths of her subconscious. The prison Mal built inside her brain and tried to keep her in. Now she was back.

She fell to her knees, covered her face with her hands and cried out loud. She was convinced that Mal had her. God knew how long she'd be in here this time. The city of crumbling skyscrapers wasn't even her creation- it was a piece of Cobb's limbo copied into her own mind, and occupied by Mal. No one lived here, just endless square miles of tall skyscrapers- and no one to occupy them. Not even projections of her own came here. There were a few projections, but she thought they were copies of Cobb's controlled by Mal.

Ariadne remembered all the attempted and failed escape attempts she made. It was pointless to go out to sea- she spent 20 years on a kayak trying to go as far as she could but she was in raw infinite subconscious. She made her way to the top of one of the skyscrapers and jumped. The impact on the ground was one of her most painful experiences- and that failed to wake her up. Her entire skeleton was shattered and she was left like that for weeks before she woke up.

Other times she spent trying to kill Mal, but Ariadne knew that Mal had seized control of her subconscious- rendering Ariadne completely useless. She was unable to create and build by imagining things. Oh how she should have easily produced a handgun out of thin air, walked to Mal from behind and shot her down in Cobb's limbo, _hundreds_ of years ago in dreamtime.

But every fight she had with Mal, Mal won. She remembered grabbing a pipe and trying to strike Mal with it. Mal made it melt into glowing hot molten metal that burned the girl's arm and leg as it oozed to the floor.

Another time Ariadne tried to shove Mal off the roof of a building, but Mal overpowered her, spawned a knife, and plunged it in Ariadne's chest, then threw her off instead. All of Ariadne's hundreds of plots to kill the projection were foiled, and Mal tormented her a hundred times worse for it.

Ariadne walked for a few miles along the shore. Buildings crumbled in the distance, and shook the ground as each one came crashing down. She knew it was safer to stay at the beach.

**The new team**

She squinted as she looked in the direction of the Sun, and saw a group of people in the distance. She ran like hell. The barely visible group of black specs chased her.

As she ran, the group came closer. In ten minutes, they began shooting at her. She tried to hide, hoping they were still thinking she was far head, but it was no use. She heard bootsteps as they surrounded the hiding spot. A smoke bomb sailed through the air and landed in the crag next to her. Before she could run, it exploded, and she was enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke. She came stumbling out and heard over a dozen loud clicks as their guns were cocked. Instinctively she threw her hands up. She was pumped full of lead in limbo before and didn't want to go through that pain again.

She felt the sharp pain as the steel toe of a boot slammed into her upper back, and she hit the ground. The second she was down, the mob swarmed her, and like a police squad, they pinned her down and slapped cuffs on her. She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the icy barrel of a gun rest against her right temple (Having your head blown to slimy smithereens didn't get you out of limbo either).

"P-please don't shoot me…" she cried.

Without a response from her captors, she was pulled to her feet. Two of them gripped her arms and led her a few feet away from the smoke cloud.

There were eight of them, fully clad in black body armor, and equipped with SA80 assault rifles. They all wore masks to hide their faces. This was the first time Mal sent a SWAT team after her.

"Search her," one of them ordered.

She was kicked to the ground and pinned down again by two while a third searched her pockets.

She tensed as she felt the icy barrel of a gun pressing against her right temple.

"Here it is," a man said, reaching into her jeans pocket and removing a blue glass prism. Ariadne got a glimpse of it-

"Keep your eyes down!" another guy said, nudging her back with his own gun.

"She's the dreamer. Get her up," a woman ordered.

Ariadne was yanked to her feet, and the men stopped pointing their guns at her.

"What's your name?" the masked leader demanded.

"A-Ariadne..."

"Close enough. Uncuff her, already."

The handcuffs were removed and she stood rubbing her wrists, nervously waiting for what came next.

"I apologise for the use of force but we had to be sure you were our dreamer and not a mere projection of your own subconscious. Most dream environments produce a considerable amount of one's own copies."

She nodded nervously, and said quickly, "Did Mal send you?"

"No," the female said sternly, "It was Saito. We're here on a search and destroy mission. Our target is your projection, Mal."

"Good luck," Ariadne said sarcastically, "She will rip you to shreds, and then she'll make copies of herself and jam them in your brains."

"We're prepared," the captain said as two others brought over a large bin, set it down and opened it.

"Name's Ausparra. You will refer to me as captain, understand?"

"Y-yes, captain." Ariadne said-

"This is Wing, a dream crafter- a very skilled architect. She specializes in limbo environment modification. She can alter the environment around us provided we are within a 50 foot radius of her. She gets her resources from her own subconscious and memory. She keeps the gravity, air pressure and mix, wind and everything else stable."

The armoured woman with a long pony tail nodded at her, but kept the grip on her gun tight.

"Captain Aus, here's her gear," one of the men said.

"It's for you. Suit up and hurry," Captain Aus ordered.

Ariadne obeyed and with help she was soon wearing the same body armor. As she put the gear on, Captain Aus continued introducing the members.

"Zen, here is a projection master. Simply put, she can identify projections and see what's in their minds, and can quickly dispose of them with mere thoughts. She's dissolved hundreds of powerful and dangerous shades in other people's dreams before. On a good day she can basically identify the shades by the characteristics of the dream space and the projections.

The woman named Zen nodded, peering at Ariadne through the mask of her headgear.

"Zen is good at what she does," Aus was saying, "and when things get difficult for her, we keep with us an actual shade master, who is well trained and equipped to deal with high-level shades. Tuscan!"

A huge African man nodded, "Yes, Captain?"

"I was just explaining to our broken architect here your astounding ability to dissolve powerful and dangerous shades."

"Oh, it's nothing really. I just hope this Mal of hers is a nice piece of ass."

Aus scoffed in disgust, "His skills enable us to tolerate him in general. When he gets his hands on a shade, it best to leave him to it,"

"R-right…"

"And this is Jimbo, our repair man. Using his own mind as a computer, he can identify and repair immediate damage inflicted by projections or shades or changes to the environment. He is essentially the healer of the group. He's an amateur but he suits easy work like this."

Jimbo nodded, although she couldn't see his face.

"And the rest of the team- they are shooters and fighters- well trained in ranged and melee combat. You can kill a projection with what it takes to kill somebody in real life. And for the difficult and dangerous ones, we have Zen and Tuscan. Over there is our navigator Chiko. She obtains data from the computer that we are all connected to, and produces a map of the region. The projection masters can then use the maps and show us the whereabouts of everyone's projections lurking around here."

Chiko, a petite Japanese national, removed her mask, greeted Ariadne with a smile, and then held out her hands as if holding an imaginary object.

"Watch," Aus said.

Out of thin air, a laptop computer spawned in front of Chiko and hovered in the air in front of her. She began typing furiously.

"Whoa…" Ariadne said with her eyes wide open, "She can…we…can we _do_ that?"

"We can, yes," Aus said, "You never knew how to do that?"

Ariadne shook her head.

"Well all we do is imagine and visualize and we get what we need. Her computer is the figment of her subconscious she is using to communicate with the computer connecting us. Chiko can obtain data on time rates, sedative injection rates, activity levels in our brains, and readings from the sensory systems in our bodies in event there's no affect on the dream space. If there's a cold breeze outside, either it's an intensified cold wind here, or she can view the readings on her computer. Because of how time is stretched down here, we can't communicate with the people outside, so she must communicate to the computer.

"Computer," Chiko barked into an extended microphone, "Get me a map and visuals of everything within a 250 mile radius. I want it in holo form."

The laptop vanished, and Chiko produced a glowing hologram that looked like a ball. The ball grew and expanded out in front of her until it looked like a flat layer.

"Captain Aus, I have a map," Chiko announced, enlarging the 3-d holo for everyone to see. Ariadne stared with widened eyes. The glowing map showed the landscape, buildings, and all other features. It was an image that she assumed compiled with immense amounts of data. In real life to produce a map saturated with information required a lot of work. A single communication with this 'computer,' Chiko literally produced this holographic image in seconds.

"The green dots are us. Red dots would represent projections of her subconscious. Blue dots would represent our own projections, which have been blocked by the computer."

"wait…" Ariadne asked slowly, "Who's dream is this? Who's the subject?"

"That way of thinking is obsolete," Aus replied, "It's no longer the classic establishment of the dreamer and the subject. There have been huge advancements of dream sharing technology. To better get into one's own subconscious, We go into their dreams, not the dream of someone else."

"Oh…"

"Don't get me wrong," Aus explained to her, "Of course people still pull subjects' subconscious into _foreign_ dreamspaces- those being the dream of another person in order to carry out suited tasks. Of course, it's considered safer to have someone else host the dream, because then the subject can't alter the environment. But those who make the subject the dreamer as well find it easier to go into their subconscious."

Ariadne rubbed her temple. She was trying to fight a headache.

"Okay so, I'm the dreamer _and _the subject?"

"No," Wing interrupted, "We're currently in your limbo. Through a specialized computer we were able to gain direct access rather than going in through the dream layer routine. The computer is what connects us in this shared dream. As we cannot go into your brain physically, the computer brings us and our subconscious' together in a shared dream. In real life physical terms, we are inside the hard drive of the computer.

"The old sedating machine made the dreamer the host of the dream and everything in it. Now a computer acts as a host instead of someone's brain."

Ariadne nodded, still confused.

"That's enough chat. We need to go. Chiko, what's the time rate?"

Chiko checked her smartphone, and replied, "The level has been set to 5. Time stretch is 20. We have 16 minutes and 41 seconds in real time. Down here, that calculates to be 101 years and 6 months."

"We're going to be stuck here for that long?" Ariadne nearly shrieked in panic.

"No," Chiko said, "One simple command to the computer, and it stops the somnacin flow, and terminates the SER process, terminating the dream, and inducing unconsciousness until the sedative wears off and we wake up. We finish the task at hand, and we go to sleep until we wake up in the real world. Unless you've been dreaming every sleeping moment your whole life, you should know that because you are unconscious while sleeping, it's virtually a nano-second."

Ariadne nodded. "…okay…"

"You know enough now," Aus said sternly, "Now its time for you to show us where this Mal projection is."

"R-right," Ariadne said nervously.

"Hold out your hands," Aus ordered.

Ariadne did so. Her eyes widened as she saw a handgun appear out of thin air and land in her hands. The metal of the pistol was cold in her hands.

"Desert Eagle. When you fire, keep your grasp tight and arms and hands braced. That gun is known to have a strong kickback."

Ariadne nodded.

"Allright, everybody, move out!"

Hours passed as they traversed into the crumbling city. The team checked every corner, and opening; and kept a sharp eye out for enemy projections. There were none.

Wing always looked at the buildings that towered above them. She briefly said she could identify the stability of the structure and if and when the buildings could come crashing down.

The Sun did not move at all as they hiked through the dead city. Ariadne half expected to feel a sunburn, but felt nothing. After ten long hours of straight walking, they arrived at a familiar location.

Ariadne remembered this part- the squared lakes, and the fenced off area where the old houses sat crumbling. But things were a lot different now; The houses were hardly recognizable and looked like lumps of sand or whatever they were made from. There was no water to be seen. The deep pits gaped hundreds of feet down- the houses held by stilts.

There was no grass, weeds or vines to be seen. Nothing grew here. The air was heavy with dust.

"What is this place?" Aus demanded.

"This is Cobb's place. It got copied into my mind," Ariadne replied, "Cobb showed me around here."

"Did he show you where Mal was?"

"_Was_, yeah."

"Then show us, I'm getting bored," Aus said impatiently.

Ariadne knew the route. The better-kept part of Limbo City was better-kept no more. When Cobb led her through here, all the buildings and streets were pristine and clean. Now everything was crumbling. She showed them to the glass highrise tower. The elevator didn't work so they had to walk up over 20 floors. Like in real life, the hike was hard.

Aus, Zen, and Chiko came to the door. It was locked.

Wing pushed past them and looked at the knob. As if using telekinesis, she moved the mechanisms inside the lock with her mind-

_Click!_ The door was now unlocked.

"Why didn't you just melt it off?"

"We like to keep a low profile. The Shade would easily pick up on modifications made to the environment. You first."

Ariadne hesitated, but Captain Aus' stern look gave her no hope. She pushed the door open.

The interior of the house looked the same, tidy, and well kept. Her gun up, Ariadne slowly entered. But Captain Aus' team covered her, and checked every corner and fanned out.

She entered the living room. No one at the table- just a plate of freshly sliced tomatoes and the knife with tomato juice still on it resting on the edge of the plate. She held her gun up, expecting Mal to pounce. She took a few more steps and found the projection lying on the floor of the living room, weeping.

"What the…" Ariadne breathed, "Hey, guys, she's over here," she called. They surrounded Mal and pointed their guns at her. Zen, a daring one, leaned over and checked Mal- like a paramedic checked an injured casualty. Mal, still wearing that damn dress, cried in broken quiet sobs, coughed and sounded like she was struggling to breathe.

"What's going on?" Ariadne asked as she unlocked the safety switch of her gun and aimed it carefully at Mal's head.

"Don't shoot," Wing hissed.

"She's broken," Zen answered.

"_Broken_?"

"Yes, like a broken machine or a toy," Zen replied as she rolled Mal onto her back. The projection offered no resistance.

"The memory she is made of was destroyed. She is but a fragment now, and struggling to survive."

Ariadne did not understand, "Well then screw it, let's just kill her."

"Not yet," Aus barked, "We like to take our time and examine things."

For several minutes, they looked at her and exchanged words.

"Okay, so she's no longer a threat?" Wing was asking, after confirming Mal no longer had control of Ariadne's subconscious.

"No. She can hardly even move, much less do anything more."

Suddenly, the projection spoke. "Ariadne…"

"Fuck you," Ariadne spat bitterly, but the projection stared at her.

"You said we'd be to-together again…"

"That was Cobb, not me." Ariadne said, raising her gun again.

"Please…come back…"

Mal suddenly struggled to reach out her hand-

Full of rage at the mere sight of this monster, Ariadne squeezed the trigger several times. The gunshots were deafening. Ariadne continued shooting until the projection lay lifeless on the floor.

"Is she dead?" Ariadne asked.

"She will be soon enough. Zen, finish it off."

Zen walked up and placed a hand on Mal's head for several minutes, and then Mal's body started to disintegrate. But there was no rotting of flesh- instead the projection's body was reduced to a pile of dust within minutes.

"The projection's destroyed," Chiko replied, "The data is deleted."

"So that's it, no more Mal?"

"Yes! Chiko, beam us up." Aus ordered.

Chiko spoke into her phone.

"Computer, beam us up. Stop all somnacin injections, and terminate all REM processes."

"Finally some sleep," Aus sighed, sitting on the couch. But they still remained there.

"Now what?" Ariadne asked.

"We wait for the computer. It will be a while. It's really fast but we'll be a few hours at the most."

But only an hour passed and suddenly Ariadne blacked out. Her last thought was:

_"Is this finally the end of the nightmare?"_


End file.
